Public-sector strategy: North Carolina builds a high-tech center;

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do certain things," he says. "One
is to provide research opportuni­ties;
the other is to provide seed
money."
Formed as a nonprofit corpora­tion,
the MCNC works closely
with five North Carolina univer­sities—
North Carolina State, North
Carolina A^T State, North Caro­lina
at Chapel Hill, North Caro­lina
at Charlotte, and Duke—as
well as the Research Triangle
Institute, a contract research
organization.
MCNC president Don Beilman
sees the center not only as the
pivotal element of microelec­tronics
development but of North
Carolina's entire high-technology
industrial development strategy.
"Microelectronics is maybe the
most pervasive of all areas in
developing high-technology
opportunities and industries,"
he says.
To staff the microelectronics
center, about 60 industrial labora­tory
people will be hired, repre­senting
advanced areas of micro­electronics
from chemistry to
computer science. Many of these
people also will have joint
appointments -with the universi­ties.
"Part of our uniqueness is
that the universities are an inte­gral
part of the overall microelec­tronics
program of the state,"
says Beilman.
Role of Education
Indeed, educational institutions
play an important role in the
MCNC strategy, as well as in
North Carolina's overall indus­trial
development plan. People of
the "tar-heel" state always have
known the value of education.
The state was founded in 1776 on
the belief that democracy requires
an educated citizenry.
But the wooing of high-technol­ogy
companies didn't begin until
the 1950s, when North Carolina
set about to use its then greatly
expanded education system to
attract industry to the state. Even
then it was not high-technology
companies per se that the state
was vying for—the term had not
yet been coined—but a new indus­trial
base to vitalize the state's
sagging economy. At that time,
North Carolina was dependent on
what were then three labor-inten­sive,
low-wage industries-tobacco,
textiles, and furniture
manufacturing—and suffered
with the lowest per capita income
and average industrial wages in
the United States. Moreover, 20
percent of its college graduates
were leaving their home state
each year for lack of career
opportunities.
One of those who resolved to
change all that was Luther
Hodges, who was the governor of
North Carolina from 1954 to 1961.
He, along with others, supported
the premise that what North Car­olina
needed in order to boost its
economy and its labor force were
new and higher-paying industries.
To foster such an industrial
renaissance, Hodges envisioned a
research park, one cooperatively
run by the state's leading univer­sities.
The main attraction for
new industry would be the uni­versities
themselves, with their
nationally recognized and multi-disciplinary
strengths in science,
mathematics, engineering, and
medicine; the research support
that the universities would pro­vide,
in the form of faculty and
research consultants; and the
graduates that the universities
would produce, which would pro­vide
the scientific and engineering
manpower necessary for industry
to grow. Ultimately, it was pre­dicted,
companies that settled in
the park would spawn manufac­turing
facilities elsewhere in
the state.
Selected as the academic base
for North Carolina's research
park were three universities: the
University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill, North Carolina State
University at Raleigh, and the pri­vately
endowed Duke University,
in Durham.
In 1958, the dream came true.
Backed with $1.5 million of pri­vately
raised funds, a research
park was realized. Named the
Research Triangle Park and mod­eled
in part after the Stanford
Research Institute, it is situated on
5,500 rolling, pine-forested acres
in the center of the triangularly
shaped area formed by the cities
in which its three participating
universities are located. The park
is operated by the three universi­ties
through the Research Trian­gle
Foundation, a nonprofit
organization.
At present, the park has about
50 tenants. Major companies with
facilities in the area include IBM,
Northrop Corporation, and Data
General. But the park's tenant
base, by design, is quite diversi­fied.
It includes, besides support
services, Burroughs Wellcome
(pharmaceuticals), the U.S. Envi­ronmental
Protection Agency, the
National Research Center for the
Humanities, as well as educa­tional
and research facilities of
the MCNC and other park pro­grams.
More than 20,000 people
work in the park, and it is esti­mated
that the high-tech compa­nies
surrounding the park employ
three times that number.
One of the park's tenants,
Northern Telecom (a Toronto-based
company owned 51 percent
by Bell of Canada) made two
decisions to move to North Caro­lina.
In 1974, it chose the town of
Creedmoor as the site for a sub-plant
for manufacturing its ana­log
telephone switching equip­ment.
"We were after the tech
graduate at that time and looking
primarily at North Carolina's
technical schools and community
colleges," says Tom Worthy,
group vice president of Northern
Telecom's digital switching sys­tems
division in the Research Tri­angle
Park.
In 1977, when the company
replaced its analog switching sys­tem
with a digital system, the
company began to press harder
for college graduates and master's
degrees. "One of the key reasons
for staying here—in addition to
the healthy business climate in
North Carolina—was the Research
Triangle and the colleges, such as
NC State, that have terrific engi­neering
schools," says Worthy.
"That forced us to rethink our
whole program."
University-Industry Bridge
The concepts of the Research Tri­angle
Park and the microelec­tronics
center are unique, main­tains
MCNC President Don